Zena Sachs was interviewed by Sue Rosen in December 1994 as part of the South Sydney Social History Project. It was a very hot day and she felt the heat dreadfully, but was nevertheless keen to do the interview and record her experiences. Zena grew up in King Street, Newtown, where her parents owned a shop. (It was a draper's shop, called "London-Paris"). Her parents had migrated from Poland via the UK. (Nobody had any papers or anything, there were no birth certificates or passports and they had to be smuggled over the border into Prussia.) Zena can remember the later years of WWI and the post war period. (The uniforms were terrible I remember they had to have putties, they were like a flannel bandage, they didn't wear socks.) She also talks about family life (Dad talked politics so much …He used to argue with everybody). With an excellent memory, Zena also provides a detailed picture of life in Newtown more generally. It's a very colourful account.

Caveat: This video was shot on a Sony Hi 8 video recorder. It was not until 2010 that we could get the analogue tapes digitised. Despite careful storage in the intervening period there has been some deterioration in quality. While we have retained the original .mov files from the original digitization in the SRA Archive, by necessity uploaded here are .mp4 files. The video is raw and unedited, a primary source document recording the occassion.